Outages are at their peak due to the apathy of the federal government, Punjab Chief Minister Shahbaz Sharif said during a meeting with elected representatives in Lahore on the dengue virus on Tuesday. Shahbaz said the federal government had paid no attention to development energy resources during the last three and a half years and this constituted criminal neglect. He said funds were wasted on projects such as rental power while important power projects like Nandipur and Chichuki Maliyan were sacrificed to corruption.
He said the protests against outages were the right of the people but elected representatives should ensure no public property was destroyed during them. He said the energy crisis was a product of malintention since the federal government owed Rs 130 billion to power generation and petroleum companies. He said no power generation projects were started in the last three and a half years, bringing the wheel of industries to a halt. He said no attention was paid to projects of cheap power generation projects from coal or bagasse.
He said the Council of Common Interests had agreed to allow provinces to start power generation projects on his proposal. He said the public must be told planning and executing power projects was the responsibility of the federal government and it had failed. Shahbaz also urged elected representatives to accelerate their efforts to eradicate the dengue virus. He said fighting dengue was a collective responsibility.
